A Godly Young Woman who passed through much tribulation, and died at Edinburgh in 1839.
BY THE LATE REV. FRANCIS M’BEAN, FREE CHURCH, FORT-AUGUSTUS.
(Continued from page 386.)
CONVERSATIONS WITH BETSY LINDSAY.
23rd June.—Called at half-past eleven, and grieved to find my dear friend, Betsy, dumb with a locked jaw, which had come on at three o’clock in the morning, being the twenty-first attack of locked jaw. Finding myself thus disappointed in what I particularly valued, and the idea of seeing Betsy probably for the last time, and that unable to speak, made me retire in sadness.
I immediately prepared and left town for Glasgow by two o’clock; thence to the West Highlands and Islands. In Harris I received the following letter from her, dated—
“17 DALRYMPLE PLACE, 4th August, 1835.
REV. SIR,—As it was a request of yours when I saw you last that I should write to you, I therefore take it upon me to do it, but hoping that you will pardon wherein I may say amiss. I was very sorry that I was not able to speak to you the day on which you bade me farewell; but it was the will of the Lord that it should be so, and He is good, and it is good that He doth. It was Thursday before my mouth was again opened (six days), but the Lord supported me under the trial, and gave me many of His sweet promises to feed on. I have had another attack of the locked jaw since then, and at present I suffer much acute pain in my breast and right side. But sin is the cause of all I now labour under, and my lot of afflictions is from the perfect hand of God, who alone is holy and just and good, and who doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. It hath pleased the Lord to try me in the furnace of affliction; but although in this bed trouble lieth heavy on me, and here feel much which is grievous to flesh and blood, yet I have no cause in the least to complain, but feel deep ground of thankfulness to Him who, from the commencement of my affliction, has all along loaded me with many of His rich and precious blessings. Oh, that my hard and stubborn heart was subdued; that my will might be wholly moulded into God’s; that I might lie passive in His hand, and know no will but His! Oh, how I long for this mortal to put on immortality, that I may depart and be with Christ and be for ever free from sin! We have had the Fast observed here which was appointed by the General Assembly, but oh, how was it kept! I fear the most part kept it merely out of contention. There are few crying with the prophet Jeremiah, ‘Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!’ Dear sir, I trust the Lord will enable you to be a faithful minister of the Gospel, and that He will make you an instrument in His hand of turning many sinners from the error of their way into the paths of peace and of holiness, and of building up and strengthening those who are weak in the faith. There is no doubt that you will meet with much scorn and much reproach, but it is enough that the servant be as his Lord; and He who is the bright and Morning Star hath said, ‘Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.’ May we, therefore, daily walk on in our Christian journey, and still keep our eye on the print of Christ’s foot; and having all our dependence on Him, we shall have nothing to fear. I now close this ill-wrote letter; but though I here lie low, far parted from you, we shall, I trust, meet and join that blessed company in the New Jerusalem, and join in that never-ending song of ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and has redeemed us unto God by his blood. To him be all honour and glory, dominion and praise, for ever and ever. Amen.’ I trust this will find you and all your friends well. I request an interest in your prayers; and I remain the unworthy object of your affectionate kindness,
ELIZABETH LINDSAY.”
28th August.—Having returned from the country, I called to see Betsy, and found her as usual in bed, weak and much pained.
My interviews with her afterwards were not so frequent, by my other engagements and by being frequently out of town; and having before taken down so much from her lips, I dropped writing as usual. There were, however, two occasions of some interval when I found her extremely low in her mind, and given to despondency. The first occasion I found her taken out of bed, and lying on a couch before the back window.
“What, Betsy, out of bed!” “Yes, sir, out of bed, but in the furnace.”
“Well, Betsy, ‘I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.'” “The furnace could be borne with greater ease if one were sure that the choosing stood connected with it.”
“Sure, Betsy! whence is that word the day? Ah, my lassie, have Peter’s maidens been ministering to you since I saw you? Have the thieves and the robbers been about you? Have they taken all your treasures, your gold and silver vessels, out of which you were wont to drink the old wine on the lees, away to Babylon, and do I find thyself at Babel’s streams to-day? Great change, Betsy.”
“Oh, sir, I have been brought very low within these three days.” “What was the process, Betsy; how did it commence?”
“That Scripture which you mentioned a little ago, from which you were preaching in the country, ‘For many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able’—Luke xiii. 24, came into my mind, and knocked all my faith and hope in the forehead, and left them almost without a breath; and then followed a reasoning and conclusion, that though I sought to enter in, yet I was one of those who should not be able. That Scripture confounds me, sir. I see in it that the Lord commands to strive to enter in, and that if any does so it must first be in a desire to enter in; and yet He says that should many desire to enter in, they will not be able. Since you have been preaching so lately from it, will you explain it to me?”
“Mark, the contrast is not between desire and desire, but between strife and desire. The Lord says not, Desire to enter; but, Strive to enter in. Desire to enter in is fruitless, but the desire that is followed by strife, is not the desire of those who will not be able to enter in. ‘The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing’—Prov. xiii. 4. He hath a desire to possess many things he has not, but his sluggishness disinclines and disables him for that exertion and strife necessary to possess those things he desires. ‘But the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.’ But the desiring and striving soul is none of those who will not be able to enter in. ‘The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force’—Matt. xi. 12. But, again, the Jews desired to enter in by their moral and ceremonial righteousness. The Pharisees were very desirous to enter in by this way; they were zealous and desirous to get in this way. ‘For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God’—Rom. x. 2, 3. The very heathen, having a notion of future rewards and punishments, desire, some after this manner and some after that, to enter into future rest; but neither the self-righteous Pharisee, nor the idolatrous heathen, however desirous, will be able. Christ is the way, and Christ is the strait gate, and the door to heaven. Whoever, therefore, desire to enter into rest apart from Him will not be able; but all those who know Him, and embrace Him, for wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, desire not only to enter, but to enter by Him, these shall be able, and shall enter. If you strive at all, strive to enter by the strait gate; and if you desire, let the desire work you up to strive to enter in at the strait gate; for I say unto you that many will seek to enter in many other ways, but shall not be able. Multitudes, in the darkness and ignorance of their own minds, conceive an idea of heaven, and of the way to it, with which they themselves are well pleased, and neither understand the heaven of God nor the way to it; and self-preservation, and a desire to be free from pain, being a first principle and a high element in human nature, nothing is more natural than a desire to be in this self-conceived heaven. The heaven of the Christian is not merely a locality within the bounds of which there is no pain but ease and joy, but perfect righteousness, perfect holiness, perfect peace with God, perfect likeness to the Lord Jesus Christ, communion with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ; and as for locality of limited bounds it little concerns him. ‘Show me Thy glory,’ said Moses. ‘Show us the Father, and it sufficeth,’ said Philip. ‘For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.’ ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ The heaven for which Paul cried at this time was not a locality, but his heaven was to be delivered from the body of death. What I apprehend alarms you at present, and is a strong temptation, is, that your seeking may be that which shall not enter in, and not the seeking that shall find.”
“Yes, sir.” “Well, take this as a sure token of the seeking that shall find, and that shall not be disappointed—Christ, His finished work is its ground of argument, His image is its desire; the glory of the Father in Him, and His glory in the Father, its primary object. Yet, the outset or first breathings of the true seeking may be deliverance from wrath and reconciliation with God. God allows this desire to be highest in the soul, until the soul by-and-by comes to be swallowed up in the glory and glorifying of the Three in One. This is the evidence of this sure token, ‘To them that believe, He is precious;’ and the evidence of the other, ‘Flee for thy life.’ Now, Betsy, you cannot deny both these. I have sufficient evidence from your own mouth, and it becomes you to say, even in the dark prison of hewn stones in which you are at present, and in which Jeremiah was, to say like him, ‘Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.’ And it behoves thee, with David, to say, ‘Lord, where are Thy former loving-kindnesses?’ David seems to have continued in this doleful condition, seeing a while after he says, ‘O when wilt Thou come unto me?’ But not long after we find him sing your own old song of delights, the 103rd Psalm, which I shall hear you yet singing with renewed delight, adding also, ‘The time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’ On my saying so she turned away her head, covered her face and wept, on which I took my leave.
(To be Continued.)